Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Osama bin Laden is to team up with sexy Arab singers Hayfa Wehbe and Nancy Ajram in the form of fireworks to light up the skies of Saudi Arabia when it celebrates the end of Ramadan later this week.

The fireworks named after the two Lebanese singers and the Saudi-born chief of Al-Qaeda had to be smuggled into the conservative Muslim kingdom, where the devices are banned on safety grounds, according to local newspapers.

Tonnes of fireworks have been smuggled in hidden in sacks of barley.

Eid al-Fitr, which starts this year in Saudi Arabia on Friday or Saturday, is a feast celebrated throughout the Islamic world following the end of the holy dawn-to-dusk fasting month of Ramadan.

Al-Watan newspaper said a Yemeni had smuggled in a truck full of fireworks, including "B-52" brands named after the massive strategic bomber, into the western region of Jeddah.

"That load could have blown up a whole district," it said, adding that Saudi civil defence workers had been busy disposing of large quantities of confiscated fireworks.